TUESDAY TRIVIA: Which Famous Criminal Ran a Soup Kitchen During the Depression?

Which famous criminal ran a soup kitchen during the Great Depression?

Notorious gangster Al Capone rented out a storefront in Chicago and opened a soup kitchen in November 1930. According to History.com, “Inside the soup kitchen, smiling women in white aprons served up coffee and sweet rolls for breakfast, soup and bread for lunch and soup, coffee and bread for dinner. No second helpings were denied. No questions were asked, and no one was asked to prove their need.” The soup kitchen provided three meals to an average of 2,200 people every day.

“He couldn’t stand it to see those poor devils starving, and nobody else seemed to be doing much, so the big boy decided to do it himself,” a Capone associate told a Chicago newspaper, according to History.com. And, according to usefultrivia.com, many of those served in the kitchen said Capone was doing more than the government for the poor.

Capone was convicted of income-tax evasion in November 1931 and sent to prison.